ICRA ViTac Workshop — Visuo-Tactile Sensing with Haptic Feedback

An earlier version of the haptic teleoperation work, accepted to the ViTac workshop (Robot Embodiment through Visuo-Tactile Perception) at ICRA 2024 in Yokohama, Japan (arXiv:2404.19585). Feedback in telerobotics is usually purely visual, which limits the operator’s dexterity; this work restores the missing sense of touch. GelSight visuo-tactile sensors on the robot’s gripper measure contact, and low-cost MANUS gloves render the estimated contact forces to the operator’s fingertips as vibration signals inside a VR teleoperation pipeline.

The goal of the project is a teleoperated solution aimed at improving the quality of life for immobile individuals by enabling independent remote task completion, for example shopping, through a robot avatar with tactile feedback.

Technologies: computer vision, haptics, virtual reality, teleoperation, ROS, Python